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Button accordions made by Italian craftsmen and sold to the Irish market in New York City are the subject of a research project that grew out of a lecture I give on the McNulty family. The McNultys, based in New York, were the hottest Irish act on the East Coast from the late 1930s through the 1950s. The button accordion has always been a popular folk instrument for Irish music, and Ann "Ma" McNulty - who learned to play in County Roscommon, Ireland, before she emigrated here in 1910 - had five of these amazing little instmments, each tuned in a different key.
Two of the major accordion brands were Baldoni and Walters. Ma McNulty had one Baldoni, two Walters, and two Superiors. Superior was a small company run by Frank Umbriaco that made primarily piano accordions. My colleagues and I have only been able to locate five of their button accordions. All three of these companies had retad shops in Manhattan at the following addresses: Baldoni Bartoli Company, 60 Mulberry Street (1908), Frank Walters, 1504 3rd Avenue; and Superior Accordion Company, 205 East 116th Street (1932) and 171 East 116th Street (1938). The Iorio Company manufacturers also built some Irish accordions. They were located at Baxter Street (1907), Prince and Broadway (1919), and the ninth floor of the Carl Fischer Budding at 80th Street and 4th Avenue (1935-47).
These Irish accordions - or "boxes," as they are commonly called - usually had ten keys or twenty notes; push (in) and pull (out) were different notes. They also had two to four bass...